Goodbye to Ariel

Yesterday we said goodbye to our amazing cat, Ariel.   All cats are amazing, all cats are unique, all cats are wonderful.   But Ariel was just a little different than your average amazing, unique, wonderful cat.

She was super smart, and she was even more independent than most cats.   She recognized other cats as fellow beings in the home,

and even adopted small waifs when they arrived in her house.

But she was eldest, she was first, and she never quite belonged with the common herd.   She was pretty sure she was one of us -- 'us', as in human, rather than 'them' as in feline.

When she came to us, she was a tiny silvery gray fireball, feisty, hot-tempered, anti-social, and supremely athletic.   Saying 'no' to her was often followed by the sight and feel of tiny claws and teeth digging into one's legs in a full-on angry attack.   A Scots friend who was visiting during Ariel's early months with us was heard to refer to her as 'the little monsterrrrrr'.  Oh, she had a temper.   To be honest, the two of us often clashed in a battle of wills -- both of us bossy, controlling females who didn't like being told what to do (or not being obeyed).

When she wanted to escape the scene, she found a perch out of reach

but in later years was always ready with a cheery greeting, her little special double 'meow-wow', uttered on a friendly, questioning note.

When she eventually mellowed, she occasionally blessed one of the resident humans with a short visit 

to desk or lap.  She never stayed long, but she wanted us to know we were part of the same family.

She loved boxes of course, both large

and small,

and of course Christmas was a favorite time of year!

She loved the game of 'papers on the floor' -- though this winsome pose

was usually followed by frenzied shredding.   Ariel -- no!

She adored shoes and laundry baskets, the smellier, the better

She figured out how to open the French doors

by watching us.   We had to keep it locked from then on, otherwise we risked returning home from an outing in midwinter and finding the living room door standing ajar.  

The other doors had to be opened by us, and she was always ready to go out early in the morning for a wee jaunt around the premises.

In the end, that morning puttering was her undoing.   Wednesday morning she was attacked by two coyotes, new to the neighborhood, and was fighting them off, hard, under a neighbor's window.   The wonderful neighbors scared off the coyotes and took Ariel to the emergency vet, and for a while there it looked like she was going to be alright.   She had surgery Thursday afternoon, and the vet was optimistic Ariel was doing well and would make a full recovery.   She even told us we might be able to bring her home yesterday.   Sadly, though, she didn't make it through the night.   In the wee hours yesterday morning, she gave up the fight and came home to us in a much different way than we had expected.

She was beautiful, she was quirky, she was a friend and she did things her own way.   We miss her and are feeling that double pull of conscience (that we let her outside into a world much larger than a small cat knows) and gratitude for the thirteen years we had with her, knowing she came to us a wildcat and left a happy member of a loving household.  

Our Rupert

Our Rupert died this week.

He was the sweetest boy ever.   I suppose he looked like every other black cat:   black.   But he had the cutest long tufts on the tips of his ears, a mellow disposition, and a loving nature that led him to take small newcomers under his wing and make them lifelong sleeping companions.

Despite a rather timid nature, he bravely defended us from various threats, including mice, frogs, birds and the Evil White Cat Across the Street.

When I started looking for photographs of the manly guy, I found only a few solo shots.

He rarely napped...

or sat guard duty

alone.


He loved his grub

and was famous for nibbling any bare toes he found standing in the kitchen while food was being prepared.   We had to develop a special Rupert Dance to avoid his not-always gentle nips.   After all, he was just trying to do everyone a favor by speeding things along.

He loved being outside in all weather

and he helped out in the garden whenever possible

He loved his special Rupert basket by the fire in winter,

but his favorite place was always cuddled up with as many friends as possible.

We buried him next to the woodpile, where he spent many hours on various projects known only to himself.   We suspect he was monitoring the mouse population there.

In final tribute to our sweet boy, I give you the silly boy Rupert movie:

Cats in Winter

What's a cat to do in winter, when it's cold and snowy outside?   There are so many choices.
There's:
bathing...

snacking ...

hide and seek ...

seed ordering ...

ski bag time ...

shoulder time ...

looking handsome ...

looking innocent ....

keeping an eye on the 'hood ....

and of course, sleeping...

At Christmas time, there is a brief interlude of excitement, for aficionados of ...
boxes ...

bags ...

gifts ...

and a certain amount of confusion about wrapping paper in one's basket.

After all that is cleared away, there is a return to
sleeping...

and that perennial favorite....
Kitty Television!

Of course they only watch one station, namely the Bird Channel.

It's on every day from dawn to dusk, and features a wide cast of characters.   One sunny day last week, I took pity on the chickens and let them out to roam the dormant garden, where deep snow hid and protected my perennials from their destructive pecking and scratching.   They found their way over to the back deck, where I had set out a tray of tasty grass for a winter greens feast.

Meanwhile, inside, sleeping cats awoke.

Hey, what's this? Kitty Television got a new channel.  The birds are so much bigger and more real -- it must be IMAX 3-D!!!!

Question is, who's watching whom?

Meanwhile, the chickens, watching the Cat Channel, are asking themselves, "Who's that?!"

Baaaawwwwwwwkkkkkkkkk!

Daring quail rescue

I had seen them, the young quail couple, cruising the neighborhood for a couple of weeks, looking for a good nest spot. Mr. Quail went first, leading the way to first one prospective site, and then another, with Mrs. Quail following unenthusiastically. I kept imagining this conversation:

Mr Q: Right over here. I think you'll love it.
Mrs. Q: Hmph, so far I've seen nothing I like.
Mr Q: OK, here it is. What do you think?
Mrs. Q: No way. Forget it. You'll have to do better than that.
Mr. Q (undaunted): Well, ok, but I have another one over this way.
Mrs. Q (lagging behind and looking increasingly skeptical): Right. Well, let's see it.
Mr. Q: Nice, eh?
Mrs. Q: Uh uh. Forget it. Listen honey, time is running out. We've got to find a home, and soon.

This went on for days and days, but eventually they disappeared, and I figured they had finally found the perfect nest spot. I wondered where it was.

This morning I found out. Walking through the house, all the windows open to let in cool air before the heat of the day, I heard a terrible screeching and shrieking of birds. Oh damn, I thought, one of my cats has caught a baby bird, and I threw on some shoes & went out for a rescue.

But it wasn't my cat at all, it was one of the many neighborhood grey cats, on the street corner across from our house, having it out with my quail pair! This corner is covered with a deep, prickly, overgrown mat of juniper shrubs, and probably looked like great cover for a nest. Unfortunately, the nest had been discovered by the grey cat and the quail family was in complete disarray. The parent birds were on the ground, flying at the cat, which seemed to have confused it momentarily.

I ran across and chased the cat away, then went back into the street to watch the spectacle. Oh my word. The juniper bushes come right down to the street on one side, then give way to a rock wall and a bare gravel area in front of the house on the other side. The quail mother was down in the gravel, leading a covey of the tiniest babies I have ever seen, down along the rock wall away from the corner, to safety. The quail father was up on the rock wall above, encouraging them all, and the stream of babies out of the bushes seemed endless. Eventually I counted 15, maybe 16, and they were trying their best to follow mom, but they must have just hatched. They could barely stand up, much less run along behind mom.

The line of cheeping, tumbling, falling, flopping babies stretched out farther and farther behind mom and dad. More kept popping out of the bushes, long after the parents were out of sight. The father kept up a constant cry of kadoo, kadoo, while the mother made encouraging chirping mom noises, and most of the babies were headed in the right direction.

It was hot and sunny and empty, out there along the rock wall, and a few got confused and turned back the wrong way. Some stumbled out into the gravel and fell over, exhausted. Still more came out of the bushes. I couldn't stand to watch, so I ran in and picked up two that had staggered behind a rock or twig, gotten stuck and frozen. They couldn't have been more than an inch long, each. I could have fit a half dozen in my hand without crowding them.

I followed the head of the parade at a distance, along the entire first yard, across the driveway of the next, and into the next yard. By then the parents had disappeared into the grass and I set my babies down to head for mom. The parents kept jumping up onto the rock wall, not understanding the babies couldn't do the same. They were game, though, and kept on, across the vast, hot waste of the asphalt driveway, up next to the second neighbor's rock wall and eventually onto the path next to the front of the house.

Meanwhile, I returned to the nest site, sure I had seen a couple going back that way. Despite walking slowly, looking carefully and peering into every cranny, I still missed two! Their camouflage is so perfect, they even disappeared into gravel of a different color. I rounded up the last singleton and went to find the parents.

Uh oh, I couldn't see them, and the male was by now on top of the roof of the neighbor's house, trying to chase dangerous me away. No sound of mom and babies. Then, as I walked up towards the front porch, I saw her. She was wedged into the farthest corner of flower bed, in the triangle between the house and the porch, with her wings outspread to make an amazing feathered fan. She didn't look like a bird at all, but some kind of abstract, geometric drawing. All I could see was a triangle of wings and her two beady little eyes locked on mine, daring me to get at her babies.

I bent over to set down the final chick, and as soon as it peeped, another popped out from right under my feet. The mother chirruped and both babies ran towards her. She lifted up her wings and I could see the whole brood, tucked underneath. More than a dozen tiny heads peeped out. Then she broke and ran, followed by the now compact stream of babies, along the base of the porch and into a hole beneath. Vanished!

I checked for stragglers as I returned to the corner, and crossed the street for home, but I think they were all accounted for. I chased the grey cat away again, and haven't seen him since.

i'm still amazed by the whole episode. I suppose I was interfering in what should have been a process of natural selection -- those babies not able to keep up were meant to die. But I figure domestic cats are not meant to be a part of a quail's normal environment, and perhaps my rescuing a small part of the flock will make up for that a bit.

I am left with a sense of wonder at the fragility and toughness of these tiny creatures. They can't have been more than a day old, down barely dry, and yet most of them managed to follow their parents across a vast distance of alien, hostile terrain without help from me.

I don't know what I would have done if I had been left holding the last wee chick, unable to find the parents. I suppose I would have tried to put it under one of my hens. Fortunately, it didn't come to that. I am merely a proud quail auntie with no further responsibilities. But I'm keeping my eye out for that gray cat.